Tools

Sylvester Stallone is 66 years old, yet apparently there remains a market who want to see him run around in his underwear punching people. His latest vehicle, Bullet to the Head is less a movie and more a testament to the ego of an unnaturally bulked up, tattooed, beef jerky-like senior citizen who still thinks he has what it takes to blow stuff up, fight guys with “deadly axes,” and slaughter tons of bad guys. This is America, and it’s fully within Mr. Stallone’s rights to mumble his way through another movie, and I certainly can’t fault him for getting a paycheck, but this is just awful. In a just world, this movie would’ve been sent straight to DVD, but Stallone’s recent vague resurgence put an end to this. The plot is both simple and needlessly convoluted. Basically, it’s a revenge film, with Stallone as James Bonomo, a hitman who wants to get back at the guys who offed his partner, and who’s being helped by a cop (Sung Kang) who wants to bring down the same thugs. Beyond this, however, the film is a jumble of plot twists, tied up around a crooked lawyer (a blessedly brief appearance by Christian Slater), a nasty mob boss (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a sadistic hired killer (Jason Momoa), and something to do with government bribes and corrupt cops. All it manages to do is bog down an already dumb film in nonsensical story, while we twiddle our thumbs waiting for the next confusing, chopped up action scene. It’s dull and aesthetically drab, propped up by an action star who’s no longer cut out for this stuff.
ByJustin Souther